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Baltimore Man’s Song Wins Ocean City Contest

OCEAN CITY – The official 2012 Ocean City Song of the Summer has been chosen and the winner is Chuck Conjar’s “Ocean City Days”.

“Ocean City Days is a great song that really captures the nostalgia of Ocean City,” said Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan. “We were so impressed by the quality of the songs submitted and believe the great response really demonstrates the special place that Ocean City has in so many people’s hearts. We extend our congratulations to Chuck Conjar and thank everyone who submitted a song or voted.”

The Song of the Summer contest was proposed back in February by Councilman Joe Hall and by May the City Council approved the official rules of the contest.

The entry phase began on June 11. Those who wished to enter the contest had to write an original song, record it and send it in to Ocean City via the official Ocean City Facebook page.

As of midnight on July 2, the entry phase of the contest closed with 55 submissions. The following week a team at Ocean City’s advertising agency, MGH, reviewed and narrowed down the selection to three finalists. The finalists were announced on July 9.

The three songs were posted on Ocean City’s Facebook page where the public voted for two weeks on who the winner would be.

“We certainly had a lot of interest in entering the contest from our loyal fans who are also song writers and singers, and then that enthusiasm translated over into the voting that had a really good turnout for the three finalists,” Ocean City Tourism and Marketing Director Donna Abbott said. “It has been exciting to see it evolve.”

Conjar’s Ocean City Days was announced as the winner on Monday and received more than 3,000 out of the nearly 5,600 votes cast in the contest.

“It feels great,” Conjar said on Tuesday. “The thing that has been really great and surprising is now that I have won I am getting all of these people coming out of the wood work telling me that they have been voting for me on a daily basis throughout the contest that I didn’t even know.”

Conjar lives in Baltimore and is the Assistant Supervisor of the Printing Department at Towson University as well as teaches psychology courses part-time at Harford Community College in Bel Air. His passion besides music is he works with a youth group at his family’s church.

Conjar plays in a two-piece band, Double Play, with life-long friend Larry Dernetz and has been writing songs for over 40 years.

Conjar said he has visited Ocean City every summer his entire life.

“No matter where else I go, I have to have my one Ocean City vacation every year,” he said. “I love the place. I have always loved the place.”

Conjar caught wind of the contest through his sister, who came across the contest on Facebook.

“She is my older sister so I do what she says,” he said. “I thought it shouldn’t be too difficult to write a song about how much I love Ocean City. I just thought about the things I like to do there and I wanted something that was upbeat and happy and focused on … going there and enjoying everything.”

As the contest winner, Conjar now has the opportunity to have the song produced and recorded in Ocean City as well as perform the song at Sunfest. The song will also be featured as an Ocean City sponsored free download on the iTunes store.

“Playing at Sunfest is going to be the thrill of a lifetime,” he said.
He is also looking forward to working in a professional studio with a producer.

“I yearn to hear the four words that any song writer wants to hear from somebody in the music business…’what else you got’, that would be my real payoff for this,” he said. “I am very happy to be selected as one of the finalists and have so many people support me all the way through this.”

2 thoughts on “Baltimore Man’s Song Wins Ocean City Contest”

The BEST song won and I am delighted! Yes, I am the “older sister”. Ocean City MD is my most favorite vacation spot in the world. Nostalgia? Yes. I still get tears of joy in my eyes as I head east across the Bay Bridge!

That’s really nice but of the thousands that live here locally & the hundreds of thousands that vacation here I think 55 entries is kind of paltry. OCMD isn’t the true beach town it once was. I think that number reflects that. A lot of people don’t come back here after one visit. Way too many rules & restrictions anymore.